Editor should exercise editoral prerogative

Like other newspapers The Interior News has a clear Letter to the Editor policy … and prints it on the Letters page. Among other things brevity and subjection to editing. On Nov. 29, you printed what you clearly identified as a letter “spilt into two parts due to the length” and ran over two weeks.

In suspending the traditional rules of a Letters to the Editor page in this way, I’m concerned that you have set an interesting precedent. In fairness, a full spectrum of axe grinders can now expect to run equal opportunity rants long enough to be serialized from one week to another instead of keeping within the usual, more disciplined format.

Since the opinions and concerns expressed in Mrs. de Jong’s two-part Epistle to the Smithereens have already been expressed by many writers over many decades in The Interior News and will continue to be expressed in the future (until now by people respecting the editorial policy) you cannot have made an exception to the rule on the basis of novelty or originality.

Mrs. de Jong cherishes many erroneous opinions about the values, spiritual delinquency, ‘misery and loneliness’ and general all-round sinful stupidity of her fellow citizens. I hope that she is feeling better now that she has discharged so much toxic resentment and frustration … via our community newspaper. And I hope that will enable her to celebrate a merrier Christmas. Why you, as the editor, chose to print so much toxic without exercising your editorial prerogative remains a concern.